The first I.S. machine was patented in U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,843,159, dated Feb. 2, 1932, and U.S. Pat. No. 1,911,119, dated May 23, 1933. Today more than 4000 I.S. machines, manufactured by a number of companies, are in use worldwide, producing more than a billion bottles every day of the year. An I.S. (individual section) machine has a plurality of identical sections (a section frame in which and on which are mounted a number of section mechanisms) each of which has a blank station which receives one or more gobs of molten glass and forms them into parisons having a threaded opening at the bottom (the finish) and a blow station which receives the parisons and forms them into bottles standing upright with the finish at the top. An invert and neck ring holder mechanism which includes an opposed pair of arms, rotatable about an invert axis, carries the parisons from the blank station to the blow station inverting the parisons from a finish down to a finish up orientation in the process. A bottle formed at the blow station is removed from the section by a takeout mechanism.
The blank station includes opposed pairs of blankmolds and the blow station includes opposed pairs of blowmolds. These molds are displaceable between open (separated) and closed positions. Opposed pairs of neck ring molds, carried (supported proximate their tops) by the invert and neck ring holder mechanism, define the finish of the bottle and hold a formed parison as it is transferred from the blank station to the blow station.
The blankmolds and the blowmolds in the '159 patent are supported on inserts carried by opposed carriers which are pivotal about a common pivot in front of the molds (front to back movement is defined by the movement of a parison from the blankmolds to the blowmolds).
A variation of the I.S. machine, disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,070,174, is called the A.I.S. machine. In this machine, which is sold today, the pairs of mold support mechanisms are mounted for axial ("A") rather than pivotal motion and are operated by motors in a conventional manner. A machine which is a derivation of the I.S. machine, is the I.T.F. machine, which is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,443,241. This machine, which has three forming stations (blank, reheat, and blow, i.e., triple forming ("T.F.")), was not successful. This machine also advanced the blank and blow mold halves axially.
Such mold open and close mechanisms are extremely complex, being defined by a very large number of parts, specially designed for a specific machine configuration, which occupy a large portion of the section frame or housing. This makes these mechanisms very expensive and often requires, in effect, a rebuilding of the machine by changing the entire mechanism to change the machine configuration.
The length of a parison generally corresponds to the length of a formed bottle and hence the height of the blankmolds may have a wide variety of heights. The blankmolds are conventionally hung, proximate their tops, from suitable carriers such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,516,352 and 4,878,935 which try to locate the bottle centrally relative to the axis of the invert and neck ring holder mechanism, whereby the finish of the formed parison will be within a wide range of vertical positions. The vertical location of the neck ring arms accordingly will be changed to follow the finish location and to facilitate this change, quick change neck ring arms have been developed (U.S. Pat. No. 4,652,291).